FROM GORDON ILLG:
FROM GORDON ILLG:
Cathy and I have been professional nature photographers for more than two decades, but I found myself at a loss for words–and that’s really saying something–when asked to describe our specialty and why we got into this business. Why did we get into this business? It certainly wasn’t for the money. When the answer hit us, it was something I just had to share with others. After all, there was the possibility of making a fast buck, or a slow buck, or any buck at all. So for the past 2 years we’ve been working on a series of ebooks, Worshipping With A Camera. The first one in the series, Other Nations; The Creatures Who Share The Planet With Us, will hopefully be ready by April, and the program will contain images from both this book, and the second one, which will be on landscapes. Henry Beston captured the gist of the first book in one paragraph:

“We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the Earth.”

The presence of a single star, not to mention the universe, the Earth and life, is a miracle beyond anything in any mythology, and with our photography we praise the Creator behind it–whatever you conceive He, She or It to be. Our style of photography is something we call “worshipping with a camera,” and if we can call attention to the underlying miracle, we’ve done our job. Many of you follow this same shooting philosophy, whether you give it the same name or not. You may photograph other things, but the natural world is your biggest source of inspiration. The reasons for this may be many and varied, but at least part of it is the fact that you, too, are captivated by the mystery and majesty of this tapestry we’ve been woven into.